Forest reclamation plan 'major mistake'
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THERE have been up to 44 cases of people being adversely affected in 21 provinces by the government's forest-reclamation policy, the National Human Rights Commission said yesterday - suggesting that the enforcement of the policy has spawned mistakes.
NHRC commissioner Niran Pitakwatchara said the number of land-dispute cases related to Order 64/2557 by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) had skyrocketed within a few months of the order being issued.
He was commenting during an NHRC-hosted conference on the national forest master plan and sustainable natural-resource management by the public sector.
The number of aggrieved people “indicates that the government’s national forest master plan is a major mistake”, Niran said.
“More than 2 million people do not own any land, while 700,000 people do not have title deeds over their lands, but their crops were destroyed and they were forced off their lands because of the anti-forest-encroachment policy.”
On the conference’s second day today, the NHRC will give those affected by the policy the chance to voice their opinions on the national forest master plan.
With the help of those in attendance, the NHRC will draft a public-sector master plan on sustainable natural-resource management and hand it to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and the Internal Security Operations Command.
According to the NHRC, of the 44 cases of affected persons, 17 were in the North, 14 in the Northeast, 11 in the South and one each in the West and the East.
Among the more than 100 people from across the country who attended the conference yesterday was Bandita Yangdee of the Khao Bantad Land Reform Network.
She claimed there were several mistakes in the national forest master plan.
“First of all, officers at the operational level ignore the [provision in] NCPO Order No 66/2557 that spares poor and landless people from the action,” she said.
“In reality, poor and landless people are those facing suppression – not the investors who owned large and vast plots that encroached on forestland.”
Bandita also said the method of only using aerial images to identify disputed land in forests was problematic and an injustice to the affected people. The traces of land occupation, mostly rubber plantations and orchards, could not be easily distinguished from natural forests if looking from above, she said.
“In the South, many preserved forestlands were leased by the government to oil-palm plantation investors and their agreements expired more than a decade ago, but these plantations are still being operated,” she said.
“The government should enforce the law strictly on them, rather than on poor and landless people.”
